


till we see the sunlight, alright.

by LLReid



Category: Bloodbound (Visual Novels)
Genre: Becca Davenport’s Hoodie, Bloodbound Appreciation Week, Domestic Fluff, Drunken Flirting, Drunken Shenanigans, Drunkenness, F/F, Fluff and Mush, Hangover, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Character of Color, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Female Character of Color, Past Abuse, Psychic Abilities, REQUEST!!, Same-Sex Marriage, Vampires, drunk Kamilah
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:00:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27224647
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LLReid/pseuds/LLReid
Summary: Inspired by; We Can’t Stop by Halloran & Kate (acoustic version)~~~~~“Lily is in trouble for getting me this drunk. Those cocktails could kill a mortal with a single sip,” she pouted. “It's a damn shame that duels don't play a role in the modern world anymore. Were it 1804 I’d drag her to New Jersey and handle this in a perfectly fucking civil manner. I wouldn’t even have to dirty my blades or ruin my nails.”“Alright, Hamilton, there’s no need to go full Aaron Burr on her ass for making you the strongest drinks you’ve had in your whole life. Let’s hesitate and exhibit some restraint. She’s probably ovaries-deep in a carton of cookie dough Ben and Jerry’s right now watching a David Attenborough documentary whilst Mumford & Sons plays in the background. You’re both suffering for your stupidity, I assure you.” She helped her lay down and pulled the covers up over her. “Go to sleep and I’ll go get you some water and Advil to take when you wake up.”“Advil is for mortals.”
Relationships: Kamilah Sayeed/Anastasia Sayeed, Kamilah Sayeed/Main Character (Bloodbound)
Comments: 29
Kudos: 58





	1. it’s we who own the night.

**Author's Note:**

> PROMPT: could u maybe write a one shot where kamilah is drunk

It wasn’t often that Kamilah got drunk. She’d enjoyed her alcoholic beverages since her mortal life and had the tolerance of someone three times her size and weight. No matter the occasion, she was the one who supplied the booze, and she was usually able to keep a cool head. In fact, in all the years they’d been married Anastasia could count on one hand the amount of times she’d seen her wife get truly shit faced... so it alway came as quite the shock when Drunk Kamilah made an appearance.

Under normal circumstances Kamilah didn’t need protection. Anyone who’d dare so much as look at her the wrong way had a death wish and would more than likely wind up with a dagger embedded in their skull. However, when she was so drunk she couldn’t walk without help it was an entirely different story. When she was like this she wasn’t the fearless leader whose name inspired both obedience and terror in even the most uncontrollable vampires, she was the same as every other woman in the world — regardless of whether they were mortal or vampire. When she was like this, she was vulnerable. An easy target in the eyes of men. When she was like this, she needed protecting.

“I’m flying!,” Kamilah slurred amidst her hysterical laughter as Anastasia used her abilities to float her through the Shadow Den’s winding tunnel system after a long night of drinking to celebrate Adrian’s 299th birthday. Kamilah may have been only 5’8’’ — and that was when she wasn’t wearing an expensive pair of heels — but she was all muscle, so it wasn’t easy for Anastasia to physically support her drunken dead weight on the way to their waiting Rolls Royce without the help of some psychic energy. At exactly 5’1’’ and three quarters with twigs for limbs, without the use of her abilities she was actually a pipsqueak by both mortal and vampire standards.

“That’s great, sweetheart,” she laughed, affectionately stroking her hair. 

“Don’t tell anyone, but sometimes I’m not sure I understand how planes even stay in the air.” She chuckled. “So this is madness. Absolute madness.”

It certainly wasn’t often she was the one who walked away from a night out being sober, but having gotten drunk on Lily’s cocktails one too many times and then suffering for days afterwards, she’d stuck to a cherry VK like she was still fourteen years old and getting drunk in a park on a Friday and called it a night at that. There’d been a time in her mortal life that she’d drank Lily’s cocktails almost every night to relax because she’d wake up buzzed the next morning. The term was ‘functional drunk,’ and as far as she had been concerned at the time, as long as she was functioning she was going to be drunk because drinking was easier for a twenty year old living in Manhattan to afford than therapy — but she’d quickly nipped that habit in the bud when she’d realised she was turning into her parents.

Lily’s cocktails were the most potent in the world as far as she was concerned.

“What the hell did Lily give me?,” Kamilah laughed.

“I think it might be easier to list the types of alcohol she didn’t give you.”

The fact that Kamilah was giggly drunk took everybody by surprise the first time they saw her in anything less than her usual regally imposing state. Usually she was the only one who got to see her this way, even when she was sober, but when she passed the point of being buzzed and went into straight up blacked out territory she laughed all the damn time at things she’d normally scoff at or stab someone between the eyes for. 

That was how she’d known it was time to leave whilst her dignity was still intact.

Kamilah hadn’t been moving or looking at her suggestively when she’d belted out Lady Gaga on Lily’s vintage karaoke machine covered in Pokemon stickers from the 00s earlier, but she sure as shit had started acting suggestively after getting tipsy enough to start doing jell-o shots with members of Clan Raines she didn’t like. She had gone straight from Disney Channel Hannah Montana to Full-on Twerk Mode Miley thanks to Lily’s mixology skills and Adrian’s insistence they sing karaoke, and it had officially been time for her to be a responsible wife and put a stop to it before she moved straight into Let’s Make a Sex Tape territory. 

She knew that a lot of people got angry with their partners for getting themselves into a state like this when they were near paralytic, but Anastasia wasn’t one of those people who’d hold a good time against anyone she loved. Kamilah had taken care of her in this state an uncountable number of times, as she had always lived exuberantly, drank hugely, eaten less than she should do, slept around the clock or missed so many nights of sleeping she started to hallucinate, worked too hard and too long, or idled for a time in utter laziness. She’d done too many stupid things to be named and she’d always taken her hangovers as a consequence, not as a punishment.

“Put your arm around my shoulders so I can help you walk to the car from here,” she said, feeling her energy starting to waver. “That’s it—“

“You’re so beautiful,” cooed Kamilah, burying her face into her hair as she gently returned her to her feet. Her knees almost buckled the minute she needed to support her own weight so she held her as tightly as she could, stumbling slightly as she tried to steady her. Kamilah, however, was completely oblivious to the struggle. Evidently her hair was far more fascinating than anything else, as she started stroking it with a heavy hand without lifting her face. One arm was around her shoulders and the other kept obscuring her vision as she stroked her... she was a very affectionate drunk. “Mmm... my Annie.”

“Babe—“

Kamilah laughed, and if she could have bottled the sound and gotten this drunk on it every night, she would have. “Your hair is so soft. It smells like coconuts.”

“Kami,” she wheezed, “I need you to help me here. One foot in front of the other, sweetheart. Just like that—“

“Your voice is… it’s beautiful.” 

Her cheeks heat up. “You think so?” 

Kamilah’s impassioned expression told her she was dead serious. “Indeed.”

“And your drunken compliments are works of art.”

“I’m extraordinarily skilled in the art of conversation. I’m the perfect gentlewoman."

She snorted. "Well, that's a first."

"Fuck you very much. I happen to be highly skilled in the art of gentlewomanry."

"That's not an art. Or a work." She huffed in amusement and kissed her cheek to placate her. “You’re adorable.”

“My feet hurt,” whined the ancient vampire, almost faceplanting the sidewalk as she tried to bend over to take a look at her shoes. Were it not for the last of her psychic energy steadying them they’d both have went down. “Why do my feet hurt?”

“Because you said that breaking in a pair of Yves Saint Laurent’s was for mortals,” she groaned, smiling gratefully at their chauffeur as he opened the car door for them. “I don’t wanna be an asshole and say I told you so when you’re in such a state... but I told you so.”

“I swear on all that is holy — if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on, I’m going to lose my shit,” Kamilah suddenly yelped. “I'm delirious. Spots are crawling before my eyes."

"Kami.” She sighed and bit down on her bottom lip, struggling not to laugh. “That’s rain. It’s raining.”

“I— oh.”

Kamilah sighed dramatically and lay down flat on her back across the entire backseat but started laughing hysterically when Anastasia nudged her legs out of the way so she could sit down, then pulled them back up to rest across her thighs. 

“If you think you’re going to throw up I need a warning,” she said, pulling the hem of her short cocktail dress down for her after it had bunched up around her waist. “If you get vomit in your hair you will be pissed off for days.”

“We’re moving,” Kamilah deadpanned. “Annie, we’re moving.”

She snorted, remembering a quote by John Green she’d felt all the way down to her soul as a sixteen year old reading Paper Towns for the first time. Something along the lines of how talking to a drunk person was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged toddler. It didn’t matter if that person was getting close to their 2100th birthday, a cocktail party hosted by Lily Spencer apparently affected us all the same.

“We’re going home,” she soothed. “We’re in the car right now. We’ll be back at the penthouse in ten minutes if traffic is good.”

“Ahhh.” Without another word she sat herself up and then adjusted herself so that when she lay back down her head was now rested on her thighs, her face turned in against her lower stomach. “Annie...”

“What is it, love?,” she asked softly as she slipped a hand into her hair and started brushing it back from her face. 

“I want you very much, indeed.”

Anastasia sighed. Her wife had just uttered the words every woman wanted to hear from the one they loved — I want you — but damn it, she was so drunk and she would not let her do this. She would not be that person when she was out of her senses.

“Not right now,” she said softly, continuing to stroke her hair with one hand and stilling the hand pawing at her chest with the other. “Just relax.”

“As you wish,” nodded Kamilah. Even in this state she still understood the sanctity of consent, which was more than could be said for most people. When she spoke again her voice was muffled into her stomach, “I feel safe.”

“That’s because you are safe.”

Kamilah hummed and turned her head so that she was looking up at her. When she spoke again she found herself startled by the intensity in her voice, the emotion now glittering in her brown eyes. “It’s because you’re not like him.”

Her heart broke a little at that. The fact that she had access to the memories of every vampire who’d ever lived wasn’t a secret, but the fact that that meant she could see the whole of her wife’s relationship with Gaius from both of their perspectives always remained unspoken. She knew what Gaius had done to her when she was sober and able to form memories... and she knew exactly what he’d done when she’d been in this state. Too drunk to remember anything. Too drunk to consent. Too drunk to put up a fight.

She bent down to kiss her forehead and whispered, “I’m never gonna be. You’re always safe with me.”

“You won't let anything bad happen to me, will you, Annie?"

A lump the size of Texas lodged in the back of her throat. She swallowed hard and tried to speak past it. “Never.”

Kamilah nodded and rubbed her cheek against her. She could be as emotional about her past as she was silly when she was like this. People always liked to say if you faced your worst fears, the rest would come easy, but those were people who were afraid of spiders or small spaces, not of themselves and the horrible things that had been done to them, or the horrible things that they’d done.

Her wife was like that pond on her parents property in Almaty that she spent hours skating on in the winters when she was a little girl — from a distance through the vantage point of her bedroom window, the ice always looked so glossy and smooth, until you got close enough to it, and suddenly all the uneven edges and crisscrossed skate marks became visible. That was Kamilah. Covered with skate tracks that nobody ever seemed to notice.

“How wonderful it is to say whatever I want without having to go over it in my mind, again and again, to make certain it won’t set anyone off,” Kamilah breathed.

She smiled sadly. “You’ll never have to do that again.”

“Kiss me again,” she murmured, drunk and foolish. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.”

She peppered a series of kisses around her face. The love she felt for Kamilah was a river, endless, winding, and deep. As far as she was concerned it had merely happened one day, washing over her like warm water. It had been nothing she’d went out in search for, nothing to force. It had taken an embarrassingly long time for her understand that even when we can't control our fate, we alone had the last say in matters of the heart. We could give love freely, even in the darkest and drunkest of times.

She kissed her lips gently, losing herself in her taste and her heat and every damn thing about her. All her senses were filled with her — her sounds, her smell, her touch. Her. Out of everything the Bloodkeeper had expected might happen in her life, she had never expected her. Sometimes the most wonderful people sneak up on you and suddenly you don't know you ever lived without them.

Her one goal in life, once upon a time, had been to succeed. But she hadn’t realised until after getting her first real job at Raines Corp — long before she was running the whole damn thing — that success wasn’t grades or scholarships or achievements, but the people she was lucky enough to have in her life. A love like this was the ultimate goal. It was not the one she had strived for, but she had been lucky enough, so damn lucky, to achieve it.

Outside the windows she took comfort in the ever-changing neon signs advertising Broadway shows and the latest movies, the wild strands of the type of music she didn’t like creeping out of trendy night clubs whenever happy swells of people pushed through the doors in their finery.

Other than the revellers and the vampires, the only people out at this hour were ones who couldn't sleep, those haunted by one thing or another: love thwarted, love lost, love thrown away. They were the sort of people who didn't want to be noticed, who wanted to slip through shadows, to be alone with their despair. Funny how New York could be so therapeutic for those who knew how to listen. She’d been one of those people, once.

Dawn would soon break. The world of vampires and rebellious partygoers was only just beginning to shut down, and the world of mortals just begging to wake. This was best time of day in the Spring time as far as she was concerned, that sweet green time when lilacs bloomed and gardens in front of expensive brownstones were filled with sugary pink peonies and Dutch tulips. When the pink sunrises were as beautiful as they were dangerous for their kind to witness. When you could actually feel the seasonal depression that seemed to engulf Manhattan between the months of October and March beginning to lift.

Getting her to the penthouse thankfully wasn’t too big of a challenge. The fact that the Ahmanet skyscraper was still deserted at this hour meant that she could slip her arms beneath hers and fold them over her chest to drag her backwards to the elevator when she decided she didn’t want to walk without ruining her reputation. It was times like this that she was thankful her wife had wanted to avoid the hassle of having neighbours and built their apartment at the top of a privately owned skyscraper. She liked to disappear, even when she was in the same room as other people. It was a talent, as it was a curse. And the penthouses location was actually a symptom of a lot of other things that had been going on when it was built, which nobody ever seemed to realise. The lonelier a person was, the more they pulled away, until humans seemed an alien race to them, with customs and a language they couldn’t even begin to understand.

“I feel ill," Kamilah announced as they stumbled out of the elevator. "I'm going to the garden, where I may die in peace. Bring me some red wine. I do not wish to die sober.”

“Go to bed, you fool," she laughed sleepily. "You're already very drunk."

"Who, me?,” pouted Kamilah. "I assure you, my love, I am cone sold stober." 

“Cone sold stober?” She raised a brow. “I’ll do you a wifely solid and slap that one on your tombstone for you. Here lies Kamilah Sayeed, she died as she lived. Cone sold stober.”

Kamilah winked at her and tried to walk on her own, feeling for the window as if she thought it might escape her unless she kept in touch with it. The glass door to the garden did escape her, however, and she stumbled against the glass and fell on the living room floor with an unceremonious crash.

“Shhhh,” she laughed hysterically. She was shushing herself. Kamilah Sayeed was on her hands and knees shushing herself, crawling towards the glass door that she couldn’t seem to locate. She seemed completely oblivious to the fact the sky was the blue sky above her and just wanted to focus on all those many roses she’d planted, the ones that gave off the scent of cloves in the rain and the ones that left a trace of lemon on your fingers, the ones that were the colour of fresh blood, and those that were as white as clouds. Each one was sweeter than the next and as red as gemstones.

Before she realised the Bloodkeeper was next to her, she had placed her hands over hers on the polished dark wood floors, then looped her fingers through hers. She looked up at her through dark eyes trapped behind a pinkish glassy glaze, so startled she might as well have been stabbed with one of her own daggers.

“Come on, drama queen,” she chuckled as she helped her to her feet and guided her to the bedroom. Kamilah was an expert in getting other people to do what she wanted. The only person that could make her do something she did not want was Anastasia, and she was not about to let her continue this rager that would only end in a sunburn. “Did you hurt yourself?”

She continued laughing and shook her head as Anastasia went about stripping her down to her underwear. “Under normal circumstances I believe that my shining dishonesty will be the salvation of me... but I do believe I may be somewhat intoxicated now that I consider the notion. Indeed, I think I may be fairly drunk.”

“What? You? Nooo! This is brand new information!”

Kamilah sighed and said so seriously it was difficult not to laugh, “I’m just as shocked as you are.”

“Mhm.”

“Lily is in trouble for getting me this drunk. Those cocktails could kill a mortal with a single sip,” she pouted. “It's a damn shame that duels don't play a role in the modern world anymore. Were it 1804 I’d drag her to New Jersey and handle this in a perfectly fucking civil manner. I wouldn’t even have to dirty my blades or ruin my nails.”

“Alright, Hamilton, there’s no need to go full Aaron Burr on her ass for making you the strongest drinks you’ve had in your whole life. Let’s hesitate and exhibit some restraint. She’s probably ovaries-deep in a carton of cookie dough Ben and Jerry’s right now watching a David Attenborough documentary whilst Mumford & Sons plays in the background. You’re both suffering for your stupidity, I assure you.” She helped her lay down and pulled the covers up over her. “Go to sleep and I’ll go get you some water and Advil to take when you wake up.”

“Advil is for mortals.”

“Advil is for those of us incorrigible enough to drink cocktails mixed by Lily. You’re going to be fucked up later.” She kissed her forehead. “Stay here. I’ll be back in a minute.”

“As you wish,” Kamilah yawned, holding onto her hand.

“What are you doing?,” she whispered. 

“Well, you were looking at me like you wanted me to kiss you.” Her tired dark eyes became heavy-lidded. “So I was thinking I might do just that.”

“Smooth,” she giggled, allowing Kamilah to draw her into a kiss. “Real smooth.”

“And just in case my reaction to your teasing me didn’t make it clear, then let me spell it out for you.” She rested her brow against hers. “I love you, my little brat.”

“I love you too.” She kissed the tip of her nose before standing up. “But you smell like a mini bar.”

“I’m told I have a beautiful scent.”

She laughed whilst making her way to the bathroom to raid the medicine cabinet. “Keep it in your pants, Sayeed.”

It took an embarrassingly long moment to find the Advil they kept in the bathroom — but when you had a wife who was almost as obsessed with poisons as she was daggers, the medicine cabinet tended to be a little crowded. She couldn’t help but laugh a little at the homicidal maniac she loved with all her heart. Kamilah was the only one for her. In her eyes the sun rose and set on her smile. Her heart beat because hers did.

“Babe, did you—“ She cut off abruptly at the sight of Kamilah star-fished in the middle of the bed, one arm draped dramatically over her forehead and the other hanging off towards her side of the bed at her left. Her right leg was sticking out of the covers and the soft snores — a tell tale sign she was drunk — filled the air.

She tried to be as quiet as possible as she got comfortable on the bed beside her, but the rustling of the sheets caused her to stir a little. A soft moan rippled through the darkness, and then she rolled over and a warm hand pressed against her chest. She pressed a kiss into her hair and drew the covers up around her shoulders.

“I love you,” she whispered. “Sleep well.”


	2. can i get a hell no?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> PROMPT: Could you do a second part where it’s the day after and she wakes up with a hangover and is really grumpy 😂 and mc just mentioning all the stupid stuff she did and said

“I’m dying,” Kamilah groaned dramatically as she pulled up the hood of the old blue hoodie that her wife had owned since college. It was a gaudy thing made of cheap fabrics with the words DONT TALK TO ME printed in block letters across the front. Perfect for nursing a hangover in. All morning she had been groaning dramatically in her agony. Offended by the light shining through the windows. Irritated with loud noises and most smells. She felt all tired and achy, so she had less tolerance for all the inconveniences of the modern world. She hadn’t felt this fragile in a good long while. “That’s it. I’m never drinking again.”

“Okay.”

“I’m serious.”

“Of course you are.”

“More serious than I’ve ever been about anything.”

“Mhm,” Anastasia hummed as she sat a bag of blood, a blueberry muffin from Starbucks, and a cappuccino in front of her on the coffee table by the couch. Sugar. Caffeine. Blood. The perfect vampiric hangover cure, apparently. “Out of sheer curiosity, what’s the last thing you remember happening last night?”

Without a word she shifted so that she was laying down with her head on Anastasia’s lap. Her pain was a visible thing caused by the dehydration and the build up of toxins in her body that Anastasia couldn’t cure with her abilities the way she could a regular stress-induced migraine, it could be seen in the way she ran her fingers through her hair, over and over, unable to hide it at all. She had no sense of time, of what day it was, or anything beyond the couch she was on and the unceasing battle she fought with the Great Bitch of Pain.

If getting drunk was how vampires forgot they were not invincible, then hangovers were certainly how they remembered.

It had been more than two thousand years since she’d gotten physically sick with anything that wasn’t either stress related or alcohol induced. So very few people had ever seen her so weak or knew that when she wasn’t feeling well she still craved copious amounts of physical affection the way she had when she’d been a sickly premature child who’d been prone to catching every childhood illness circulating the Egyptian Empire. She’d been so demanding of attention that her parents had employed several servants to hold her from the moment she’d fallen ill until the moment she felt better — and she still wished to be held constantly... only it was more intense now because her wife’s cuddles were the stuff of magic.

“I...” She trailed off, a shiver making her entire body shake. Anastasia noticed and pulled the cosy blanket Serafine had made them further around her. “I vaguely recall Lily and I singing a song about... a disco stick... or was it a bad romance? Then I have absolutely nothing until you holding my hair back as I was vomiting in the bathroom.”

“Do you want to know what you did or would you prefer to remain in the dark?”

She groaned and pulled the blanket over her face. “On a scale from the time I slashed the tires of Adrian’s Ferrari to the time you had to erase memories after I tried to steal a medieval sword in broad daylight from The British Museum, how bad is it?”

“Somewhere between the time you bought a fleet of private jets so you could brag to Adrian about your army of planes being better than his one G6 and the time you and Serafine almost got yourselves arrested by trying to rig all the games at that casino in Monte Carlo.” The Bloodkeeper took a sip out of her chai tea. “In the grand scheme of the Things Drunk Kamilah Did list, it’s not that bad— okay, that’s a lie, it was pretty eventful. You’re nursing an alcohol induced hangover and I’m nursing a psychic hangover because I had to erase so many memories and keep the vast majority of people at that party from accidentally committing suicide as a result of one too many of Lily’s cocktails.”

“Go on then,” she groaned as she sat up and reached for her cappuccino. Her hands shook as she lifted the coffee cup and inhaled the fragrant steam before sipping, the rock solid muscles in her arms screaming with just that slight movement, and it wasn’t the pleasant sort of pain she could usually enjoy. She felt her age... which was fucking terrifying. “Enlighten me.”

“Are you sure?”

“I wish to know now,” she whined, not caring that she sounded like a five-year-old throwing a tantrum.

“Well you did a lot of shots off of Serafine’s stomach which led to you playing a game where you had Lily stand against a wall so you could throw your daggers around her. You almost cut her ear off at one point and she thought the whole thing was hilarious because she’s apparently an artistic genius like Van Gogh.” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Though I stepped in and stopped you before you could agree to getting a tattoo sleeve with her and an equally drunk Nikhil—“

“I wanted to get a what with who?!,” she shrieked, hurting her own head with how high pitched her voice became. “That is absurd! I am more than two thousand years old, why would I think that now is the optimal time in my life to start modifying my body?”

Anastasia shrugged. “You were quite insistent, you all were, and I admit to using my abilities to stop you guys from making such a big decision drunk. You know I wouldn’t—“

“Thank you,” she interjected before she could apologise for peering into her head uninvited. “You know how I feel about tattoo sleeves— what was I planning on getting, might I ask?”

At that Anastasia couldn’t hold back her laughter. “You wanted a naked picture of me in my collar and handcuffs surrounded by knives and flowers. Apparently having the only three things in this world you love on your body was the best idea you’ve ever had, those were your words.”

“How classy of me.” She sighed and buried her face into her shoulder. “Please tell me that’s it—“

Anastasia kissed the top of her head. “Not even close, sweetheart.”

All she could do was cringe as she began working on her blueberry muffin in the hopes it would quickly raise her blood sugar. It was a relief that Anastasia wasn’t upset with her for getting herself into such a state, the way Gaius once had been when she’d indulged in one too many drinks despite the ways she suspected he’d been able to use her body that she had no memory of. Relationships were mysterious things. Kamilah had doubted the positive qualities in others, seldom the negative until meeting Anastasia. She recalled saying to Gaius: do you really love me? Are you sure you love me? She would ask this a dozen times when she’d done something he disapproved of and drove herself nuts. But she had never asked him: are you really mad at me? Are you sure you’re angry? When he had been angry, she did not doubt it for a moment. 

Yet now the reverse happened be true. She doubted all the negative in life, and had much more faith in the positive and knew with absolute certainty that she’d been respected... even after behaving so foolishly that she’d blacked out. She felt both relaxed and protected with her, not like the way she’d felt with Gaius when she’d just known something bad had happened despite not remembering it.

“What else did I do?”

“You put on Lily’s rollerblades and started speed skating through the Shadow Den whilst pulling Adrian behind you on one of Lula’s skateboards... that you’d tied him to with one of the neon feather boas Serafine got at Mardi Gras. It ended with you crashing head first into the vault and almost breaking a fang. Then the two of you raced in her Barbie jeeps and used them as dogems until he fell asleep on top of the bar in his underwear—“

“Excuse me, he what?”

“I did warn you all not to drink Lily’s cocktails,” Anastasia muttered. “He kept stripping down no matter how many times I used my abilities to force him to put his clothes back on— he was one of many half naked people passed out in random places by the time I got us out of there.”

Her mouth opened, then closed, then opened again and she grabbed the blood bag and practically inhaled it. She wasn’t entirely sure if she was amused and wanted to know more or pissed enough to want to know nothing or so ready to wash her hands of this whole thing that she’d ask for her memories to be erased. Finally, she nodded and opted for option number one. “Carry on. What else?”

“You and Serafine somehow got up onto the chandeliers whilst I was trying to get Adrian back into his clothes and you used them as trapezes. I caught you hanging upside down from one—“

“No—“

She handed her cellphone over, where a picture of Serafine lounging like Cleo-fucking-patra holding a blue cocktail with brightly coloured lollipops sticking out of it — that looked like it had been served in a fishbowl — on the right hand edge of the chandelier was on the screen. It took a long moment for it to sink in that the imbecile dangling upside down by her knees on the left was her... but there she was. Upside down on a bloody chandelier with bright green feather boas in both of her hands, flashing her panties like a drunken mortal with a death wish. 

They weren’t even sexy panties.

Her expression settled into a mixture of shining wonder and endless sorrow and every muscle in her body stiffened at once. “I think now would be an excellent time to fall gallantly on one of my own blades.”

“I erased everyone’s memories and forced them to delete any pictures or videos, don’t worry.” Anastasia took another sip of her chai tea. “I knew you’d be extremely upset if you thought people could remember you hanging upside down and mooning them... my memory and this photo are the only evidence it ever happened. Not even Serafine remembers.”

Her aching muscles relaxed and she started grinning like the town idiot. And now was certainly not the time to be grinning like the town idiot. Yet she couldn’t help it as her eyes ate up the sight of her wife, at the brilliant woman who’d saved her from a social suicide from which she’d never have recovered. Her gorgeous face. Ginger hair pulled back in a ponytail with a black velvet hair scrunchy with a few loose strands framing her face. Amused blue eyes. She was so damn hot when she was amused at her.

She took her face in both of her hands and drew her into a long kiss. Her mouth was hot and hungry, and she kissed her the way no woman should kiss and still be allowed to run free. “Thank you. My love, I— What the hell did Lily put in those drinks?”

“She’s been fired from every bar tending job she’s ever had for a reason,” Anastasia shrugged. She flashed her the kind of smile that made a woman want to start writing very bad poetry. Dazzling and genuine and as beautiful as the rest of her. 

“Indeed, I’m starting to realise that.” She shivered again and whimpered a little as a particularly sharp pain shot through her head. “This is torture. This is how I die. I don’t want to know anything else, my brain feels like it’s experiencing menstrual cramps.”

Anastasia opened her arms and she immediately crumbled into them, closing her eyes as she inhaled her scent deep into her lungs. She gave her a gentle tug so that she was nestled on her lap, half laying down with her face rested between her neck and shoulder, as her fingers combed through the length of her hair. 

“I’m a total fucking mess.”

“You’ll be fine.” She spoke in that gentle tone that made it clear she wasn’t dismissing what she was feeling or telling her to stop acting like a baby, she was just reminding her that the pain would end. “Just relax. Everything is going to be fine.”

She hummed in agreement and her eyes drifted towards the TV. “Annie. This show is ridiculous.”

“I know,” she said. “But it’s addictive and there’s lesbians in it. Trust me, one episode of this crap and you’ll be hooked and forget about how bad you’re feeling.”

“Sorry, baby, but I can pretty much guarantee that’s not going to happen.”

It happened.

Gods help her. 

She was into this show. 

She was hungover and watching reruns instead of working.

She woke up with the single-minded purpose of making it through her hangover quick enough to make it to work by the mid afternoon. Instead, she was snuggled up in her wife’s arms sipping on a hot cappuccino, and she’d somehow watched four hours worth of a Mexican soap opera, and now she was texting the office to let them she would not be making it in. Because… Gods help her… she wanted to know what happened next.

“This whole thing is still ridiculous,” she murmured, rubbing her cheek against Anastasia’s chest like a sleepy cat.

“Don’t worry,” her voice softened to velvet as she felt her tremble. Her warm breath stirred her hair as she said, “I won’t tell anybody you’re nursing your hangover with a Forever 21 hoodie and some Juliantina.”

She huffed, her eyes still on the TV. “What happened to the daggers I had on me last night, by the way?”

“I confiscated them when you tried to start fencing with that ridiculous Storm Trooper suit of Jax’s that’s displayed by his memorial.”

She groaned loudly. “If I ever try to drink one of Lily’s cocktails again you have my full permission to stab me in the eyes.”

Anastasia tilted her chin up and kissed her. It was a kiss that went on and on, deep and voracious. She’d never been kissed like this before by anyone else, with an intensity that stripped everything down to the simplest components: woman, woman. She held her with her hand burrowed into her hair, her aching skull gripped in her palm, her head tilted back while she fed from her mouth. That was what it felt like, a taking, a healing. And yet she gave, too. She gave pleasure. She burned with it, the flames fueled by nothing more than her mouth and tongue. It was the kisses like this that made her wonder if it was possible to nominate someone’s tongue for sainthood.

“Drama queen,” Anastasia murmured breathlessly as they broke apart.

She huffed. “Brat.”

“Drunk.”

“You're a demon, you know that?,” she laughed. "When your feet hit the floor every morning, I'll bet the devil shudders and says 'Oh shit, she's awake.’”

“Now that is the best compliment you’ve ever given me.” She threw her head back laughing. “I’m not a woman. I’m the Grim Reaper with red hair!”

“You’re going to be punished for that attitude once I’m back to full strength.” She smirked. “Can’t have you thinking that this sort of bratty behaviour is allowed.”

Anastasia giggled. “I look forward to it... though I ask you refrain from getting me tattooed on your arm when you see me in my collar.”

She pulled the blanket right up over her face again and groaned loudly, though a smile twitched at the corners of her lips.

“Anyone who’d have to tattoo you wouldn’t live to tell the tale,” Anastasia continued. “If it wasn’t absolutely perfect a bitch would wind up getting stabbed.”

“Will this torment ever cease?”

“Maybe in a century or so.”

“God, I love you,” she chuckled. “I love you so much.”

~ fin.


End file.
